Two programs featured in Tuesday’s Eagle are great examples of how to get young people to think about how they can help others.

One story focused on Butler Senior High School’s Best Buddies program, which pairs students with intellectual disabilities with students who do not have disabilities. The program’s aim is to promote inclusivity and a welcoming atmosphere at the school.

It’s great to see the school aiming to find ways to be inclusive at a time when other areas of our society are failing on that front.

If you glance at the news, you’ll see the myriad ways in which people are being pitted against each other — by politics or other forces — so we think it’s a great idea for students to see that just because someone is different from you, there are also many similarities.

As a case in point, one student told the Eagle she discovered she had much in common with the students with whom she was partnered through the program. Another said it helped her to get out of her “comfort zone.”

Under the program, pairs of students spoke with each other weekly and hung out at least twice per month.

The high school’s chapter was recently selected as the 2021 chapter of the year — out of 1,375 nationally — during an annual leadership conference. We offer our congratulations — it was well deserved.

Another program featured Tuesday was the Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company’s Cadet Fire Academy, a free summer camp that combines fun activities with the intention of “forming future firefighters.”

The program plants a seed so that students might become interested in helping their community by volunteering as a firefighter when they get older.

It’s important to garner interest among young people in the profession because the state has seen the number of volunteers drop to dangerously low levels.

While more than 96% of the state’s firefighters are volunteers, the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped from 300,000 to 40,000 in 50 years. One result has been slower response times to emergencies.

“You’ve gotta start that interest young — it’s hard to get people who have already started their lives to commit,” said Nathan Hezlep, who created the program with Aidan Upton and has volunteered with the Cranberry fire company for years.

We agree that getting youths interested in helping others in their communities — whether through a program that enables them to spend time with fellow students with whom they might not normally interact or another that promotes volunteerism and shows them how to save lives — at a young age is always beneficial.

— NCD